


What We Don't Talk About

by Evilbob



Series: A Planet To Save Somewhere [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Nebulous, F/M, Kissing, M/M, Non-Graphic Torture, Vague Polyamory, drunken admission of feelings, emotions are terrible, lana laughing at everyone of these idiots, smooches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29263473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilbob/pseuds/Evilbob
Summary: Feelings are garbage and alcohol makes Theron chatty.
Relationships: Kira Carsen/Male Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython, Male Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython/Theron Shan
Series: A Planet To Save Somewhere [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148987
Kudos: 5





	What We Don't Talk About

“How many times are you going to rescue me?”

“At least enough to make us even,” he allowed the crack of a smile to make it past his worried expression.

“You had better be counting Zakull.”

“I wasn’t a part of that team, so no.”

I raised an eyebrow, “You absolutely were. Just because you weren’t on the ground with Lana and Tee-Seven, doesn’t make you any less a part of the team that got me out of that poisoned carbonite.”

“I should have been there.”

“Do you know how embarrassed I would have been if I hadn’t recognized you like happened with Lana? She gives me a hard enough time, with you...” I trailed off realizing he wasn’t smiling in return.

“I would have thought,” a long pause filled with too much emotion, “I don’t know,” his eyes cast down and he focused all of his thoughts towards finding a Kolto wrap. “I’d probably give you a hard time too.”

I reached out and rested my hand along Theron’s jawline, lifting his eyes to meet mine, “Hey, what’s the matter?

“Nothing. Apparently being around you force types makes me all sensitive.”

“Your implants might shield you from interrogation, but I’d like to think I can tell when you’re hiding from me. No use of the force needed.”

“Not at all. I just. We need to get a bandage on those,” he touched my forearm gingerly, “otherwise they’ll scar.”  
  
I ticked the left corner of my mouth into a smile, causing the scar that stretched across my cheek and nose to ripple, “Well, we wouldn’t want that.”  
  
I let the silence fill two heartbeats.  
  
“Let’s get back to base. I could use a few hours pretending to sleep after this latest run in with the Horizon Guard.”  
  
Theron didn’t say anything while he wrapped my arm. The Kolto was cold and then transitioned to hot, before settling into it’s slightly numbing wave.  
  
He reached for my cheek, and I began to smile, but he just turned my head so he could see my implant, “It looks like this took a pretty bad hit. You should have someone in Dr. Oggurobb’s office check it out when we get back to the base.  
  
I wanted to say, ‘why do I need to be able to hear if you won’t talk to me.’  
  
“Ok,” I said.  
  
He got up, “You should pretend to get a little rest here on the ship too. I’m going to check on our arrival with Lana.”  
  
“Ok, Theron.”  
  
I regretted the words as soon as they left my lips. Seeing him fold into himself, like he as been struck. It was a movement that all of his years as a spy could hide, almost. But the ripples it sent into the force were like some sign on Nar Shaddaa.  
  
And before I could say anything else. He was gone.  
  
*******  
  
We got back to Odessan without incident.  
  
I was able to catch Lana before we left the shuttle, “Hey, we need to hold off on getting everyone together until the morning.”  
  
She lifted an eyebrow quizzically, “Really? They are going to want a debrief on this like two hours ago.”  
  
“I just can’t tonight. I need a shower and some sleep. And apparently to get one of my implants checked on.”  
  
“I’ll keep them off your back for the night. When your commander is the type who normally needs to be prodded into taking any sort of a break, they should take my word that it’s serious if you’re the one requesting a few hours to yourself.”  
  
“Thank you, Lana. My,” I gestured at my self with a lazy circle of my hand, “everything appreciates it.”  
  
She was laughing as she disembarked and headed to the war room to update the rest of the Alliance leadership.  
  
I took the longer back route to my quarters. Guards and soldiers were still in the halls, but I knew I was much less likely to run into someone who needed my immediate attention this way.  
  
The commander’s quarters were both plush and austere. The bed was one of the most decadent I had ever had the pleasure of lying in, staring at the ceiling, and not being able to sleep in. But where I would have chosen to have a few Jedi artworks, and comfortable chairs for reading, the room instead was furnished with the utilitarian steel furniture of a field officer.  
  
On my way to the ‘fresher I took a moment to check to priority messages concerning sightings of Kira or Doc, but there was still no sign of them. Nothing flagged for Scourge either, I wondered absently as I made my towards the shower if he had traveled home when the crew had disbanded.  
  
I sat on a low stool in the ‘fresher, removing my gloves, bracers, and belt. Carefully folding them and setting them on the shelf I always used for this. My boots came off and my feet screamed out that I had been upright for entirely too long. I tucked them under the shelf and began removing my robe and trousers. These were hung next to my other gear. It was all very ordered, very focused. Theron loved to joke that I was so deep into being a Jedi that even my clothing couldn’t stand chaos.  
  
He had once said this to me as I was hanging my robe, and when I turned around he was grinning like a fool, standing over a haphazard pile of his clothing, discarded at a whim, with one boot halfway across the room.  
  
I remember taking two strides towards him, and lifting his mouth to mine as I told him, “and you are my serenity.”  
  
I shook my head to bring myself back to the present.  
  
I desperately hoped I hadn’t destroyed something today. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew I had made whatever it was worse.  
  
The water in the shower came on and all of my skin tensed. The temperature was set very cold. I reached to turn it up, but the bandage around my burned arm stopped me. As much as I loved a scalding shower, that didn’t seem wise. So I set to letting the cold water wash away the last week.  
  
It was a week that had started well enough. We were researching the Star Fortresses, Vaylin’s current destructive toy. And the Fortress over Voss had given us quite a lot of information. It was when we reached Tatooine to destroy one of the shield bases that everything went wrong. The hit required Lana and I to split up and hit generators simultaneously. Hers was lightly fortified. Mine was a trap.  
  
The Exarchs and Horizon Guard had a contingent that had been prepared for the hit. I’m sure the rest of the Alliance was trying to find the leak from the moment my comm went down.  
  
I like to think of myself as a capable warrior, I had always excelled in my forms as a padawan, and since becoming a Knight, then Master, I had been in more battles than any Jedi should. My skills were at their peak. But there is only so much you can do against two-dozen force users who are more afraid of their Empress than death.  
  
The poison didn’t help either.  
  
My stomach recoiled at that memory. The Exarchs had used some sort of paralytic combined with a rare herb that could temporarily confuse your access to the force. Between that combination and a truly stunning amount of force lightning, I had gone down quickly.  
  
The burning flesh on my arm had brought me back to my senses.  
  
The interrogator, face hidden by his black and bronze helm, could probably have broken most people, force-users or not. But I knew that the only thing standing between Zakull and the obliteration of everyone on Odessan, was that they didn’t know where our base was. If I had to die to protect all of those people, my people, then so be it. An early information raid had gained us valuable security data on the Spire and hopefully the key to disrupting it’s control over the Eternal Fleet. Losing this data had cost many Knights their lives at the hand of the new Empress and my interrogator wanted revenge.  
  
I gently removed the Kolto wrap. Theron was right, that would likely prevent scaring.  
  
The torture lasted what seemed like several hours at a time. Fire was clearly a favorite tool, but in one memorable instance I had mouthed off and taken a stool to the side of the head. I’m not sure how long I was out after that particular round.  
  
Theron and Koth stormed in to break me out after four days. I wasn’t conscious when they hoisted me off the table, but I remember coming to in a hallway and helping them carry me out.  
  
I put my hand on the wall and just leaned into the water.  
  
Did being a Jedi mean you never got a break?  
  
I remember being young and seeing all of these texts on the Jedi of old. Teachers and scholars, mystics who would travel to some forgotten moon and meditate on the force. Who would open themselves up to the flow within a new patch of space and come to know it like they knew their own skin. The masters of old who let the force teach them to build great temples, or unlock healing. What must it have been like to be a Jedi when the galaxy wasn’t determined to tear itself apart at every turn?  
  
If I ever took on a padawan I hoped I could teach them more about peace than about war. I hoped I would know enough about peace to teach that.  
  
I turned off the water and levitated a towel to dry off. Running my hand over my chin I could tell I also needed to shave. But that could wait until morning.  
  
Wrapping the towel around my waist I headed for the bed.  
  
My sleep tunic was simple. Very much like my first robe when I joined the order. The soft cotton was warm compared to my now quite cool skin. I hung my towel over the bar on my dresser, everything in it’s proper place, and crawled under the covers expecting to stare at the ceiling until my chrono told me it was time for the morning briefing.  
  
*******  
  
“Wake up dummy!  
  
Kira’s voice barked the command in my mind and I was awake as though someone had hit me with a brick.  
  
I spun my head around the room looking for her, for where the voice had come from. But I was alone. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I attempted to regain my bearings.  
  
My heart was pounding. Kira’s voice had been crystal clear. And it wasn’t a memory of something she had said to me a million times before.  
  
Kira had only called me a dummy once, the night we first said ‘I love you’. We had both called each other dummy that night. And then laughing I had picked her up and carried her to my cabin on the Defender.  
  
I took three slow deep breaths and tried to relax.  
  
I got up and moved to my meditation area. Maybe she was finally reaching out to me. Maybe this meant I could find her and bring her home.  
  
I crossed my legs and closed my eyes as I reached out with the force.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Do not become frustrated. Let the force speak to you.  
  
I took another deep breath and as I let it out I felt the slightest pull on my senses.  
  
I forced myself to go through the centering hand movements, refusing to rush myself and lose the thread. I focused on that pin point and stretched, trying to strengthen the connection.  
  
And I found my senses had brought me to Theron’s room.  
  
“Well that’s probably not good” I said out loud as I got up to put on trousers. It wouldn’t be proper to go traipsing through the halls in my tunic.  
  
As I rounded the corner that would lead me to Theron’s room I almost collided with Lana, behind her Theron’s door slid shut.  
  
“I’m sorry Lana, I ...” I glanced back at the door and then her, her hair mussed like I had only seen after a strenuous battle, “I, um, didn’t...”  
  
“It’s fine commander. Theron had a few too, no, many too many drinks this evening. I was just making sure he made it back to his bunk without falling off a ledge or getting lost.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Commander you’re hilarious when you’re not fully awake. Just taking care of that drunk idiot, nothing more. Trust me, he’s not my type.”  
  
“Oh, I mean, that’s none of my...”  
  
“Really?” This time she raised both eyebrows and pursed her lips into the most incongruous face I had ever seen her make, “most of the rest of the people around here might be dense enough not to notice, but you two are moon-eyed over each other. And I would be willing to bet, never mind. I was never here and you’re still in bed getting that rest I told everyone you needed.”  
  
Before I could respond with more than a few startled blinks she was gone, off down the hallway towards her own room.  
  
I took a deep breath and tapped at Theron’s door.  
  
“Yes, I’m drinking water Lana, go ‘way.”  
  
“I’m glad you’re drinking water, but it’s not Lana.”  
  
“Oooh, hee, sorry. In that case, no one’s home, I’m sleeping.”  
  
“Please, may I come in.”  
  
There was a sigh from the other side of the door, which considering their thickness was impressive, “yeah, come on in.” He sounded quite a bit more sober all of a sudden.  
  
I entered to find him sitting on the floor next to his bed, legs splayed wide, head draped backwards onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling. He gave me a stuttering wave.  
  
“May I join you?”  
  
He shrugged, “yeah,” and patted the floor next to him.  
  
I crossed the room and sat down, legs crossed. Propping my chin on my hand, and elbow on my knee, I tried to figure out what about this had woken me in such a panic.  
  
Theron sighed. Long and deep. He was drunk, but more than that he was tired. Down to his bones. I could see it on his face, in his posture. I understood.  
  
“I’m sorry for how I behaved on the shuttle earlier. I was insensitive and shouldn’t have pushed you to talk when you clearly didn’t want to. I thought we were joking around, but clearly I said something wrong. You don’t have to explain. I just, I don’t know. I needed to tell you this before too much time went by.”  
  
“You came all the way down here, in the middle of the night for that?” He looked skeptical.  
  
“Sort of,” I tried to puzzle out how to explain why I had felt compelled to be here when I wasn’t entirely sure. “I woke up with this feeling, and when I got here, it just seemed like what my mind needed to say.”  
  
“Your brain is weird.”  
  
“I’m aware.”  
  
“But you were actually sleeping?”  
  
“Amazingly I was. Until I wasn’t.”  
  
“That is how normal people sleep.”  
  
“I mean...”  
  
“I know what you meant. You’re so wholesome sometimes I wonder how you can handle being around the rest of us.”  
  
“Well if we’re being honest, I wish I hadn’t recruited Skadge. I really don’t quite know how that happened. But then it was happening and I couldn’t stop it.”  
  
“No one likes Skadge. But he just won’t leave. But the rest of us, we’re not the pure-hearted noble types like you. At best we’re broken, at worst we’re...” he shrugged, raising his hands palms up.  
  
“I’m not that pure. I’ve got too much war under my belt. It makes you have to make choices. Choices that have no good outcome, so sometimes you just go for least worst.”  
  
“And yet here you are, making the galaxy better with even your less than ideal options, and apologizing to me for me being, well me. I’m the one who was having issues on the shuttle. It’s not your fault you stumbled into that mine field unprepared.”  
  
“I’m not going to press, but you’re right. I don’t know what mine field we got lost in up there. But if you’ll tell me, I would like to know. If only so I don’t go running through it again on my way somewhere else.”  
  
“You are such a Jedi.”  
  
“Last I checked that wasn’t a bad thing.”  
  
“Yeah, well.”  
  
“Wait, is me being a Jedi a problem for you? I didn’t...”  
  
He cut me off, “No, it’s just. Maybe. I don’t know. This is fun,” he gestured between us, “but I’m just a diversion right?”  
  
“That wasn’t my plan.”  
  
“But it has to be. This can’t go anywhere. Not really.”  
  
“And why not?”  
  
He looked at me like I had sprouted a second head, “Attachments. You know that big no no in the Jedi order?”  
  
“Oh, it’s far too late for that,” I smiled gently and reached out for him.  
  
He pulled away, “Sure. Of course. You can just ignore the centuries of ritual and tradition. What, for me?” He laughed the most pained laugh I had encountered out of anyone besides Scourge.  
  
“My own mother couldn’t even do that. Did you know I was weaned three months earlier than most republic doctors even recommend beginning that process? Because she could have,” he waves his hand at the air dramatically, “whatever fling and get pregnant. She could spend nine months bringing me into this world, but caring for me was a step too far.”  
  
I was fairly certain this was the first time I had ever heard him refer to Master Satele as mother.  
  
Now he was standing and pacing, “no attachment, so lets just send you off to some Republic backwater to live with my retired Jedi Master. We don’t really deal with families, so I’m sure he’ll be able to raise a well adjusted kid from 4 months old. And yeah, Master Zho had worked with the younglings in the crèche some, but those kids are what? At least five years old. He had no idea. Bless him, he tried, but here’s this man who I love. I mean he might as well be my father. And I adore the ground he walks on, and he’s teaching me all of these basics of the Jedi way. But the whole time reminding himself not to get attached. Because that would be bad.  
  
“And here I am at seven, in this remote place. And you know they never hid from me who my mother was? As soon as I was old enough to figure out how families normally worked, I got to meet her, the great Mater Satele Shan. But I’m seven so Master Zho decides it’s time to really put my skills to the test. And I fail. Miserably. I spent a week trying to connect to that damnedable holocron, to get it to open for me, at one point do you know I even fucking begged. A holocron! Nothing. And what does Master Zho tell me? That he can no longer be my teacher. That I have to travel to the Jedi Temple to see who will take over my studies. Knowing full and well that if I can’t open a holocron his… suspicions are correct and I’m not force sensitive. And if I’m not force sensitive the order won’t take me. No matter who my mother is,” he throws his shoulders and arms into the air.  
  
“So he takes me to Tython and drops me at the questing fields and just leaves. Leaves a seven year old with no force ability and a, a wooden saber on… what might as well have been the other side of the planet from the temple. My job is to make it there. Sure lots of kids go through this. Kids with the force. Kids with more than the clothes on their back and a single medpac. And you know what, my Master abandoned me on that planet because he couldn’t get attached to some regular kid, and I still made it. I was almost dead, and spent a week in recovery from dehydration and an infected wound,” he lifted his shirt and points at the old scar that snakes across his left side, jagged and mean, “I’ve been carrying this since I was seven.  
  
“And then they tell me that I can’t stay. Not even Master Shan, just some Knight. He gets the fortune of coming to tell me that even though I passed this trial I don’t get to join the order and that a shuttle will be picking me up soon. I won’t lie, when they told me I wasn’t going back to Master Zho, I cried. And yelled, and broke some things. I think I heard the speech about anger being the path to the dark side about a hundred times in the two days before the shuttle came.  
  
“I thought I was broken. I thought I had done something so unforgivably wrong that he just had to get rid of me. He no longer wanted me.  
  
“Master Shan never made an appearance either. I found out later, that she was at the temple. So good at not having attachments.”  
  
He finally had stopped pacing and threw himself in the armchair across from me. I wanted to go to him, to hold his face in my hands and tell him I’m sorry. That I didn’t know. But I don’t. It wouldn’t help him. It might even hurt. He didn’t need or want to be coddled, his identity played itself as too tough for that. This was one of the first times I had seen a real crack in his carefully crafted shell. I needed to give him time with opening.  
  
“I don’t know if the worst part was spending seven years thinking Master Zho gave a flying bantha’s shit about me, or the way he never even told me goodbye. I saw him years later on Coruscant, I was maybe, eh, sixteen? I waved and he looked right fucking through me. He didn’t even know who I was, or he didn’t want to deal with me knowing that he did.”  
  
And that was, I thought, the mine field I had stumbled into. Not recognizing him could never be funny.  
  
“The SIS recruited me when I was fifteen. I didn’t need any guardian’s approval to sign up, because I didn’t have one. And even the SIS threw me to the sarlacc the first time it was easier than having my back.  
  
“So you might say this,” he gestured wildly again, “means something. But as soon as Kira comes back, or the order reminds you of the rules, or you...” he sighed, “get bored. You’ll remember not to be attached. I’ll be the Alliance’s top spy, we’ll be cordial in meetings, and that will be that. You’ll remain the stalwart Jedi hero, and I’ll just be.”  
  
The room was silent. I gave it time. I gave him time. I didn’t want to speak over him, not in this.  
  
He slumped in his chair, the passion and rage of the last minutes drained out of him, “Uggg, whatever. I don’t know. Just, uhhhggg.”  
  
I slowly rose from my place on the floor and walked to him. His head was thrown back after that last pronounced ‘uhhhggg’. He saw me coming when I was almost three quarters of the way to him, which meant that he may not seem as drunk as before but he was still quite inebriated. Normally he was the most observant non-force user I had ever met. I knelt down at the foot of his chair and reached out to take his hands. This time he didn’t pull away.  
  
“I’m not going to tell you I’m sorry. And I can’t promise the future will be all sunshine and moonflowers. But,” I start but then I don’t know how to proceed, “but I mean it when I say this isn’t just a diversion.”  
  
“I like the sentiment, really, but maybe it should be. Look, I know what I want it to be, but what I want and what I get are not usually in the same sector. Sometimes I can forget that for a little while, but I shouldn’t be getting attached either.”  
  
I tried to keep the heartbreak off my face. But there was a reason I didn’t play pazaak, “If that’s really what you, want. I. I can try to do that for you.”  
  
“You’ve got so much going on with leading the Alliance. And I know we’re still looking for half of your crew. I’ll just be in the way.”  
  
My brain was screaming. Why in the holy hells did Kira’s voice decide to wake me up for this? Yes, on one side he was right, Jedi weren’t supposed to get attached, because it lead to fear and pain. And I was feeling the full force of that pain now. I felt like I couldn’t get enough air. Like someone was crushing my chest.  
  
“Dammit, Kira,” it slipped out of my mouth, barely audible.  
  
“What?”  
  
Breathe you idiot.  
  
Center yourself.  
  
“Sorry, this just isn’t what I was expecting when I woke up.”  
  
His face grew somehow more serious, and with a hint of anger around his eyes, “Why did you come down here?”  
  
“I thought something was wrong,” pulling my hand free and gesturing, “and well technically I was correct.”  
  
“Then why are you swearing at Kira?”  
  
“Heh, uh, well, her voice is what woke me up.”  
  
“You had a dream about Kira, so you came down here?” he looked disgusted.  
  
“It wasn’t a dream. Exactly. Just her voice. Telling me to wake up.”  
  
“Now she’s acting as your alarm clock?”  
  
“No. It was just,” I took a deep breath, “I told you about Kira and I.”  
  
“Yeah but she’s a Jedi too, and was raised Sith, she can turn off her emotions with the best of them. So no worry about getting attached.”  
  
I laughed, he scowled.  
  
“She and I were way beyond attached when I made her leave Darth Marr’s ship with me on it. That’s why I sent her away, I couldn’t handle the thought of anything happening to her. It’s why I spend most of my evenings combing reports trying to find a lead on where she disappeared to. It’s why I know she’s still alive.”  
  
“And one of these day’s you’ll find her,” he pulled his other hand away and was staring intently at them.  
  
“Yes, but that’s not the point. See. Uh, this is going to be a little involved. She and I started out planning on not getting attached. That was the plan. It, it really didn’t work. She called me a dummy the first time she said I love you.”  
  
“Oookay...”  
  
“Look, that was the only time she ever called me that. I maybe called her one right back, not the point. But tonight. When her voice woke me up, it was what it said that did it. She told me to, wake up dummy. Normally when I hear her voice, since she’s been gone at least, it’s always repeats of things she’s actually said. But this wasn’t. And it was in a very, um, pay-the-fuck-attention sort of tone.  
  
“I thought that maybe she had popped back up on scanners somewhere or had even made it to base for a minute. I tried to search for her, with the force.  
  
“But instead all I found was you,” Theron’s face falls with that single word, “no, no, no, that’s not what I meant. I meant I didn’t even really register anyone else in the base. Literally Theron, you were the only one I could feel. I. I, my senses were drawn right to you like a beacon. They were, you were,” I covered my face with my hands, “I reached out with the force for Kira, because through everything, even all this time, I love her. And really I was reaching out for that feeling, for that love. But the force brought me to you. And,” and in that moment things became clear, “And I don’t think that was a mistake. I believe the force was steering me at the, the person who. Who I love.”  
  
“You, what?”  
  
“I love you, Theron.”  
  
Silence filled the room.  
  
“I was smitten with you from the moment we met. And through all the adventures, it didn’t subside. I knew from that first kiss on Rishi that I wanted you in my life. And I think this, I think realizing how much I had hurt you earlier made me realize that, that I could lose you. And no attachments be damned. I had hoped you felt the same, but if I’m overstepping, or if I misread us then, well that’s on me to deal with.”  
  
“And when you find Kira?”  
  
“I hope you’ll be with me when I do.”  
  
He started to speak, but then stopped.  
  
“Kira knew that I was barely able to stop myself from flirting with you in the Fleet cantina after that first set of missions. When we got back to the Defender she told me she could see it on my face. She told me if you were receptive that I should go for it.”  
  
“Wait, what?”  
  
“You thought I kissed you without her knowing?”  
  
“I thought that you just weren’t, attached,” he said the last word like it was some venomous thing that could bite him at any moment.  
  
“Theron, listen to me,” I reached out for his hand, “I’m quite attached to you, and that’s what I want. This isn’t some fling to me. You’re not a diversion until Kira comes home. Sure, what you and I have won’t be like what Kira and I have. But I want it to be something. And not something less than, just, it’ll be different.”  
  
He reached for my face with his free hand, “you need to shave.”  
  
I felt like I was getting emotional whiplash, “what?”  
  
“You’re too stubbly to properly kiss,” and with that he slid his hand to the back of my head and pulled me forward. The kiss was deep and passionate. This could go on until the stars burned themselves out, and it wouldn’t be long enough.  
  
I wanted nothing more than to melt into him, I reached up and took his face in my hands as well. It felt as though our souls were calling to each other. He pulled back from me, “And so you know, I l-”  
  
The air practically shook around us as the alert sirens began.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry not sorry about that ending.


End file.
